All posts by Sigrid Macdonald

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Today’s Writing Tip Is on Our Favorite Words

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Many writers have certain words that they use repeatedly without any awareness of doing so. Writer A may love the word invariably and use it throughout a business proposal. Writer B may add the phrase “as well” or “too” to the end of dozens of sentences in her novel.

Often it’s hard to recognize words that we overuse, which is why it’s good to have someone else read your copy before you submit a manuscript or short story to a publisher. Meanwhile, if you blog or write for an audience, ask your readers what words tend to reappear in your work.

I often use whereas and however; I do this in order to avoid using the word but. But there are times when it’s better to choose a different word, even if it sounds pedestrian. Bookmark a good thesaurus and search for synonyms for the words that you tend to use often.

Sigrid Macdonald is the author of three books, including Be Your Own Editor, available on Amazon in paperback for $15.34 (http://tinyurl.com/39kx9zq) or Kindle (http://tiny.cc/mzk4c) for $3.99. Buy it directly from me for $9.99 from now until Christmas. Visit http://sigridmacdonald.blogspot.com.

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Today’s Writing Tip Is When to Use ie. and e.g.

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Many people are unsure about when to use the abbreviation i.e. and when to use e.g. First, let’s look at what these abbreviations stand for.

Contrary to popular belief, the initials i.e. do not stand for Internet Explorer! They stand for “id est,” which is Latin for “that is to say” or “in other words.” E.g. means “for example” or” such as.” Its Latin derivative is “exempli gratia.” (If you want to abbreviate Internet Explorer, use the capital letters IE.)

Using these in a sentence, we would say, Darren has a strong background in science (i.e., he has studied physics and chemistry.) Or Darren has an extensive vocabulary (e.g., he can think of 25 different synonyms for awesome or amazing.)

Note that you always want to insert periods with i.e. and e.g. and then to use a comma afterwards.

Sigrid Macdonald is the author of three books, including Be Your Own Editor, available on Amazon in paperback for $15.34 (http://tinyurl.com/39kx9zq) or Kindle (http://tiny.cc/mzk4c) for $3.99. Buy it directly from me for $9.99 from now until Christmas. Visit http://sigridmacdonald.blogspot.com.

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Today’s Writing Tip Is about Find and Replace

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Many of you are probably familiar with the function within Microsoft Word that allows us to find a particular word or phrase and replace it with something else. Like the ubiquitous spell-check, sometimes this works wonders and other times it can cause more trouble than it’s worth.

Let’s say I have a 150 page document and I want to change the name Mark to Marvin. I click on the “Home” tab in Office 2010 at the very far left corner of my manuscript. Then on the far right I see the words “Find,” “Replace” and “Select.” I hit “Find” and type in Mark. Then I click “Replace” and type in Marvin and hit OK. Bravo. Everything converts.

But recently I went into a 3300 word document and tried to replace the word “she” with “I.” Word made 1119 replacements! Not exactly the correction I had in mind. Even though I had capitalized the term “I,” it replaced the character “i” in every word including “with,” “interesting” or “line.” Fortunately, I was able to exit from my writing without saving it and decided to replace the word “I” manually. If anyone has any better suggestions, I’d love to hear them.

Sigrid Macdonald is the author of three books, including Be Your Own Editor, available on Amazon in paperback for $15.34 (http://tinyurl.com/39kx9zq) or Kindle (http://tiny.cc/mzk4c) for $3.79. Visit her at http://sigridmacdonald.blogspot.com.

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Today’s Writing Tip Is on E-Books

Last year, for the first time ever, electronic book sales exceeded those of books in print. Amazing, and mostly attributable to the affordability of the Kindle reader. So, if you ever wanted to write an e-book, now is the time. There are three main advantages to having your book available electronically, starting with the size of the book, and moving on to the price and waiting time for your purchase.

Not all books are 250-350 pages long. Sometimes we want to write a short book that is only 40 pages or 80 pages. This would look rather skimpy in print but it would be fine digitally.

Second, most books in print cost somewhere between $15-$20, not including shipping and handling. But e-books can sell for as little as three or four dollars. Right now my book, Be Your Own Editor, is available for $3.79 on Amazon. That’s less than most people pay for postage when they’re buying a paperback! And there’s no tax.

Third, e-books can be downloaded within minutes whereas it can take 10 days or more for Amazon to deliver a hardcopy book to your door.

All the reasons for buying e-books are good reasons for writing e-books, because they sell. And if you sell them yourself, it’s 100% profit. So, if you’ve been thinking about writing an e-book, but have been procrastinating, open up a new Word document and start today.

Sigrid Macdonald is the author of three books, including Be Your Own Editor. Buy it on Kindle at http://tinyurl.com/329hmu6.

advice

Today’s Writing Tip: Establishing Authority

Freelance-Zone.com welcomes Sigrid Macdonald back with another round of writing tips. It’s great to have you back, Sigrid!

Often writers want to sound modest, so they say things like “I’m not an authority,” or “I could be wrong.” This may work well in general conversation or on a message board, but it doesn’t fly in a book, blog post or an article. Why not? Well, if you’re not an authority, why should I care what you write?

Let’s say you’re discussing bullying. If you preface your remarks by saying that this is just your humble opinion and you may not be right, readers have no reason to give your words any credibility. Take the time and the effort to establish and substantiate your position; then don’t undermine yourself by saying that you’re not an authority.

Sigrid Macdonald is a book coach, a manuscript editor, and the author of three books including Be Your Own Editor. BYOE is available on Amazon in soft cover and on Kindle . Or get 20% off the regular price by writing directly to the author at sigridmac@rogers.com. Read more at http://beyourowneditor.blogspot.com.

advice

How to Write a Smashing E-Mail: Part Six

Use a size 12 font, especially when writing to anyone over the age of 40. You don’t want people squinting in order to decipher your text. If you know your recipient well and that person uses a size 10, it’s fine to reply in the same fashion. But size 12 is standard and you can be assured that most people will be able to read it without any difficulty.

And try not to be cutesy unless you’re writing to your best friend. Stay away from font colors like pink and purple. The easiest font to read is black. Emoticons are individual. Some people use them all the time and others never use them. By and large, you don’t want to include emoticons in work-related notes; the same is true for acronyms like LOL or ROFL. Exceptions can always be made when you know your colleague or your boss well, and the situation seems to warrant a funny face.

Sigrid Macdonald is a book coach, an editor, and the author of three books, including the newly released Be Your Own Editor, available on Lulu or on Amazon in paperback, and on Kindle.